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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26163598">At The Crossings of Two Heart Lines</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/pseuds/MayQueen517'>MayQueen517</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Mentions of religion, Unbeta'd, a retelling on the Orpheus/Eurydice myth, a sort of an alternate universe, because the author is a giant mythology nerd, it's kind of a mesh of everything, mentions of Joe and Nicky's canon history, there's a happy ending i swear, words and love are basically the entirety of this fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:09:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,239</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26163598</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/pseuds/MayQueen517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"You understand - you cannot look back until you both stand beneath the sun."</p><p>"I do not need to see my love to know he is there. He is the breath in my lungs and the beat of my heart."</p><p>"Very well."<br/>---</p><p>A Joe/Nicky twist on the Orpheus/Eurydice myth.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>284</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>At The Crossings of Two Heart Lines</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello! </p><p>This was born after a conversation with AphroditesTummyRolls about myths and I mentioned that I had had this one rolling around. That conversation was last night. </p><p>SO, here we are! This just kept coming and I'm extremely proud of it. It's one of my favorite myths, but for those who are worried - there is a happy ending, so don't fret!</p><p>Thanks absolutely go to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AphroditesTummyRolls/pseuds/AphroditesTummyRolls">AphroditesTummyRolls</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger">hauntedjaeger</a> for cheerleading this and me! </p><p>Title is from the <a href="https://www.sonnetstoorpheus.com/book1_3.html">3rd Sonnet to Orpheus by Rilke</a>, because why not.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It is said that Yusuf al Kaysani has a gift. His song can lift the spirits and charm the winds. He can bring rain and he does it with a smile. He is never far from where he needs to be.</p><p>He has a gift, after all.</p><p>For Yusuf, the true gift, beyond any and all talents given to him through hard work and unasked for grace is the love of the man never far from his side.</p><p>Nicolò.</p><p>It is a story to warm the heart around the fires - one of acceptance and learning and love.</p><p>It is love that leads him down his path.</p><p>---<br/>
"You understand - you cannot look back until you both stand beneath the sun."</p><p>"I do not need to see my love to know he is there. He is the breath in my lungs and the beat of my heart."</p><p>"Very well."</p><p>---</p><p>The air in the underworld is fresher than Yusuf would have thought. It reminds him of the caves that he and Nicolò had explored, just before the cold season had descended. His fingers drift over the strings of his lyre, the notes seeming to brighten the darkness.</p><p>"It is like the caves we explored when we were young men, Nico," Yusuf says, waiting for a conversation that won't come. He knows that Nicolò will not be able to speak for this journey. It pulls at him, like a wound that is in the last stages of healing.</p><p>Yusuf can talk enough for both, though.</p><p>"Well, younger men, I think is what you would say. Your humor, my love, it is what made me like you. You made me laugh and I thought, ah, here is the soul to light mine," Yusuf says, plucking out the notes on his lyre that seem to call to his soul. He can hear the dripping of water and under the plucked strings, he imagines he can hear the wails of the tortured and alone.</p><p>The crush of rocks against rocks is constant behind him, the sound reassuring Yusuf that Nicolò is behind him. He hums softly, plucking the courting song he had once played in the village, intent on wooing Nicolò to his side. He can still see the blush on those cheeks, the mole that his lips can't help but visit on every kiss, and the way his lips had tasted.</p><p>His soul yearns for him. Yearns to see him and touch him. He thinks maybe he could turn quickly, so quickly that nobody but Yusuf and the cave would know.</p><p>Heart in his throat, Yusuf stops, clenching his eyes tight as his hands flatten on the lyre. The footsteps behind him stop; if he concentrates, he thinks he can hear the soft breathing of his beloved.</p><p>"I am sorry, Nico," Yusuf says, voice choked as he heaves a deep breath in, looking down at his lyre. The patterns are smooth from the oils in his fingers, the strings newly strung for this journey. "I am thinking about your face, the last morning I saw you."</p><p>He hears the scuff of the dirt at their feet, a soft shuffle as Yusuf huffs quietly, starting to walk forward. It is hard, it is rocky in these areas and the sounds of torment are close. Yusuf wonders if it's the torment in his own soul that he's hearing.</p><p>"I kissed your nose, your mole that you once told me you did not like, and your lips. And I am going to do it again," Yusuf says, setting his fingers back on his lyre. The simple scale he taps out, ringing through the dark seems to lift his spirits and he thinks he can hear Nicolò's laugh in the notes.</p><p>It is hours before Yusuf stops playing.</p><p>There is an area above, flattened and the rocks there seem drier than the rocks he's slipping over. He watches them, wondering if there's space for his pack. He doesn't know how long has passed - he wonders if time passes differently in the underworld.</p><p>"Habibi, I fear that I am not as good at long treks as I was once," Yusuf says, climbing to the depressed area, seating himself. The footsteps behind him stop but Yusuf breathes in deep, reminding himself that his love is behind him.</p><p>He would not abandon Nicolò to this place and thus, in his heart, he knows that Nicolò would not abandon him.</p><p>"I know what you would say; that I was never good at them and perhaps you would be right," Yusuf says. "But, hayati, I was a merchant before you. Maybe I have simply forgotten how to travel without you by my side, hmm?" He asks. He half expects to hear Nicolò's teasing laugh, feel the prick of his stubble and smell the clean sweat that accompanies their love-making.</p><p>"Nicolò," Yusuf says softly, stretching to pillow himself on his pack. He holds his lyre close as a poor stand-in for his Nicolò and he doesn't cry. He can hear the shuddering breath of his love holding back his emotions.</p><p>"I know this is hard. Can you hold on for a little longer?" Yusuf asks, holding a hand out, remembering the last time he had this conversation, his love had held his hand. He can still feel the charcoal in his hand as he sketched the lips his own craved to kiss.</p><p>Yusuf drifts, eyes closed, murmuring half-remembered stanzas of poetry and the odes he's written to the green of Nicolò's eyes. He centers himself, breathing slowly and he feels the touch of a disturbed breeze against his hand. It tugs at his tunic and his hair, gentle but insistent.</p><p>He smiles.</p><p>"Is this your way of telling me to move on?" Yusuf teases. He pulls himself to his feet though, shouldering his pack and holding his lyre close. He walks in silence, listening for the rustle of pebbles to track where his Nico has drifted.</p><p>Yusuf keeps walking.</p><p>He sings when he can't find the words, work songs and mournful pieces that have always touched Nicolò in that tender heart. When he can't sing, he recites all the poetry he has read and has held in his heart.</p><p>It isn't enough.</p><p>Does he walk for hours? For days? For weeks? There is no telling and Yusuf, lips cracked and eyes heavy after what seems to be an eternity finds that he has no energy. He sits on the floor, barely holding to his lyre as tears well in his eyes and slip down his face.</p><p>He buries his face in his hands, a sob escaping.</p><p>"My love, why did you go walking in the forest that day?" he asks, voice strained and tears clearing thin tracks on his dusty cheeks. The dim light of the underworld makes him feel more alone than ever, even before he hears the sobbing screams from somewhere behind him or ahead of him. Direction in the underworld has become a luxury that Yusuf can no longer afford.</p><p>"I have asked myself this since you were brought back to our house, pale and cold and gone from me. Why?" Yusuf asks, emotion strangling his words. Around him the shadows seem to length and he can no longer hear the soft breathing that lets him know Nicolò is nearby.</p><p>"I can't make sense of it, Nicolò," Yusuf says. It hurts, as if he's eaten something too hot and maybe it is the coals of his own frustration. He curls over, head nearly pressed to the ground as if he is praying. He has not brought his mat and he doesn't know if he could find the words.</p><p>He tries.</p><p>He murmurs them for the comfort of saying something with love and hoping for something better. Yusuf's breath hitches on a broken sigh, the panic and anger leaving him with every slow breath. He thinks of his Nicolò and the panic that used to grip him when he began to change his mind. Yusuf thinks about the desperate prayers he had once overheard.</p><p>"I am scared, habibi," Yusuf says, looking forward. The sounds of wailing sound like his own in the house he had shared with Nicolò. His grimace causes the skin on his lips to split, the sharp pain a reminder of how much further he has to go.</p><p>"There is no way but forward and I would have you at my back for all the years left in my heart. I just wish I could see you before I continue," Yusuf says. He closes his eyes, thinking to his own sketchbook and the hundreds of sketches of his love's lips, his eyes, and the gentle curve of his cock. His soul hungers for its other half and he knows that he needs to get to his feet.</p><p>He cannot stop. To stop is to lose Nicolò forever.</p><p>And what is Yusuf's life without Nicolò?</p><p>The walk is harder this time, each step like walking through the floodwaters. He finds a pace that he can manage, staring straight ahead. The silence is more deafening than all the screams around him. It is the same silence of his and Nicolò's house, the morning after his passing. It is the silence that expects to hear another person's heartbeat and their breathing.</p><p>He drifts, the darkness flitting around him like a cloak on the loom. He plods forward, breath heaving as he cries in fits and starts. He can no longer hear the footsteps of Nicolò behind him.</p><p>"Nicolò," he whispers, the sound echoing through the caverns. He shudders at the sound, the dark caves full of torment and lamentations from generations past and generations ahead.</p><p>"I find myself thinking of the first time you heard the call to prayer. You were so unsure. But you sat and listened to our faith and our prayers and you cried. I can still see the tears on your face, you know," Yusuf says, thinking back to the man who had sat there, stunned. He thinks of those green eyes, welling with tears, and knowing just how much this man had to unlearn.</p><p>"I did not love you for a long time, you know," Yusuf says conversationally, "But I think that is when I began to like you. Ah, habibi, you were so lost when you found us. Do you still think of it?"</p><p>Yusuf wipes at his eyes, feeling the grit of the dust around them. His lyre is heavy in his hands and he finds his fingers drifting to the strings as if he's playing the sound of his own soul.</p><p>"I never told you this," Yusuf says, bracketing his words with glissandi that seem to brighten the underworld around him, "I had debated about leaving my home, before you arrived. I thought that I would travel. That I would have no home and perhaps would forget how to navigate back home. Mind you, I still thought of doing so when you arrived. You were such an insufferable man, hayati."</p><p>Yusuf laughs to himself, fingers plucking out a now familiar tune, the song that Nicolò had first learned to pick out on the strings. His spirit lifts as he walks, the pressure on his chest easing.</p><p>"We have not had an easy time of it, you and I," Yusuf muses. His fingers ache and burn but he keeps playing, hearing the grind of sandals on the dirt behind him. He stifles a sob by biting his cracked and chapped lips, feeling the hint of a breeze pulling at his clothes.</p><p>"I thought I lost you," Yusuf says, letting the tears fall where they might. He imagines that he can hear Nicolò murmuring to him, like he does as they fall asleep. He imagines that his Nicolò, were he here, would slip his hand into Yusuf's, anchoring them both.</p><p>Yusuf drifts, one foot in front of the other, humming to drive the shadows away. He pauses for a few moments, knowing that if he were to linger that he could become lost down here. Lost without his Nicolò is a fate worse than death, he thinks, holding his lyre close.</p><p>The pull of the wind becomes insistent and Yusuf chuckles. His exhaustion is becoming harder to ignore and Yusuf wonders if he's meant to wander the underworld for all of his years. If this is a cruel trick of fate, to let him come so close.</p><p>"Nicolò, do you remember that day on the beach?" Yusuf asks, gliding his fingers along the wood of his lyre. His hands ache and he knows that without the notes spilling from this lyre that the darkness will close in and he will lose hope. He doesn't think about what would happen were he to leave it in the underworld.</p><p>"I can hear you now, 'Cuore mio there have been so many days at the beach'," Yusuf says, mimicking Nicolò's voice as best he can, laughing to himself. "I am thinking of when we agreed to spend our lives together. Do you remember feeding each other figs? I feel as if I can smell the spray of the sea and the grit of the sand. I can taste the figs on your mouth."</p><p>He remembers sticky kisses, the tart fruit lingering on Nicolò's lips as Yusuf lost himself in his soul's body. In his ears, the rushing of his blood is the water around him and he can spare no more for the tears that threaten.</p><p>"Do you know," Yusuf says, using his now broken nail to pluck at the string on his lyre. It saves the pads of his fingers from the ache and it drives the shadows away. It is a small price to pay to not lose himself to his grief as he continues, "I doubted you once. I know it is shameful, but my love, you were so unsure when we first came together. I think I spent our first few months together, wondering when I would lose you."</p><p>The wind howls behind him and Yusuf huffs softly, a smile teasing around his cracked lips. The air is lighter here, whether it be from his laugh or his love or even the music that spills from him.</p><p>"You had so much shame in you. I was worried that my love wouldn't be enough to overcome that. Perhaps I should have told you above, but now you know," Yusuf sighs, playing a scale on the strings with muscle memory, mind blanking after so long. He wonders if he will lose all of this when he gets to the surface.</p><p>The wind hums around him and he can just hear the soft, thoughtful humming that Nicolò makes when he's first woken. He thinks of Nicolò readying himself for the day and how Nicolò fetches the water first for himself and then sets some aside for Yusuf. He thinks of watching him in the morning light, his head bowed as he watches Yusuf from the corner of his eyes.</p><p>"I have not doubted you since the first time I saw your eyes light up when they met mine across the first dinner we prepared together. Habibi, you are warmth on a cold night. You are the stars in the sky, leading me home because that is where you are," Yusuf says, taking longer strides. The ground beneath him is inclining, slowly but surely, and Yusuf thinks of Nicolò leading goats through the paths and the nanny goat that had adopted him.</p><p>Yusuf laughs softly at the thought, stowing his lyre in his pack to use his hands to anchor him for the climb. He can't hear Nicolò behind him and he doubts for a moment.</p><p>He doubts and pauses, looking up at the mountain he must still climb to the sunshine and his doubts, for a moment, are insurmountable.</p><p>"What if this is a cruel trick, my love? What if I get into the sunshine and you are gone?" Yusuf asks as he looks at the dirt below him. It shines in the dim light, as though it were the crushed glass that the artists in the square use for blowing glass. He clenches his hands in it, using the dull ache to center himself as he looks up, the incline seeming to have grown in his pause.</p><p>The wind moans, carrying the sounds of torment that Yusuf knows is the torment that lives in his own heart. It tugs at him, his hair and his face and he closes his eyes to lean into it, as if it is Nicolò's hand on the other end.</p><p>"If I get into the sunshine and you are gone, I will simply return and return for you," Yusuf resolves, starting his climb.</p><p>The climb is slower than the walk, but it is the forward momentum that is important. His sandals break and he kicks them away, as if they are the doubts he once held in his heart. He climbs easier without them, feels lighter in his soul without the shameful feeling of doubt that once shadowed the start of their relationship.</p><p>He hums to himself on the climb, bits of remembered prayers and songs that make Nicolò's eyes soften and warm. He talks of kissing Nicolò's lips and the cravings that suffuse his entire being without Nicolò at his side.</p><p>The wind is a constant, growing stronger as he gets closer to the light. He winces at the sounds around him, the wind howling and the wails of his own grief days (weeks? months? He has no way of knowing just how much time has passed) are louder than they have been since this journey started.</p><p>Near the summit - for it has been a mountain, he knows now - he gasps for air. He can taste the salt in the air, whether it's from his own tears or the remembered salt spray of Malta, but he knows he's close.</p><p>"If you are not in the sunshine with me, hayati, I will be very cross," Yusuf rasps, chuckling to himself. His lips have cracked again; he has nothing left to wet them, to save himself the pain. His cheeks and nose are wind-burned but he relishes the feeling and the sting as a physical reminder that his love has been with him every step of the way.</p><p>He hauls himself into the sun, the rays are blinding. It's so hot after the chill of the underworld and he sobs brokenly. He sprawls on the rocks, absorbing the heat and it is as if a dam has broken. He has lost his pack somewhere in the climb but he can't find it in himself to mourn the loss as he sobs harder and harder.</p><p>Yusuf is aware, dimly, that he is close to collapse. He crawls forward, touching the sand with his tender skin and battered soul. The grit is comforting, like a memory that he will never lose. There is a well nearby, he can smell the water, and briefly, he wishes he could have some. He has nothing left for tears but the wailing from his chest that finally has a place to go.</p><p>Mourning the journey and everything that led to it, he lays in the sand, breath hitching. His eyes stay closed, unwilling to look behind him, in fear that he will lose Nicolò after everything. He hears the murmur of the wind, as if it is Nicolò himself there.</p><p>Hands touch him, his face and there's water dripping on his face. He has the presence of mind to register that they're tears before he slips to the welcoming black of exhaustion.</p><p>---</p><p>If asked, Nicolò would not be able to tell his love or even himself why he went strolling through the woods that morning. He finds that he can't remember it, save for the aching pain in his ankle and the venom that had coursed through him. He knows, like he knows the shape of Yusuf's smile, that his last thoughts had been of Yusuf.</p><p>It seemed like a cruel trick and Nicolò thinks about it with tears. His mind fills with the memory of Yusuf walking through an underworld too dark to contain the bright spark of the man who holds his entire heart and soul.</p><p>He remembers the sound of Yusuf's voice, reciting prayers and poetry, sometimes in the same breath. If Nicolò concentrates, he can hear the strings that brought him closer to his love, tethering them the way Nicolò feels their souls are. Nicolò sobs breathlessly, hauling Yusuf closer.</p><p>Nicolò slides his hand to his chest and over his face, touching the raw, chapped lips, and the burns on his cheeks and exposed skin. Nicolò sobs into Yusuf's neck, terror thrumming through him like a mockery of his own heartbeat. Yusuf's heart beats steadily, reminding him that he is above the underworld. That his love, though exhausted, is in his arms.</p><p>Words fall from Nicolò's mouth as he rocks them back and forth.</p><p>"Hayati, I am here. It is Nico. Sono qui, Yusuf," Nicolò says, sobbing as he pets the dusty hair of his love. He can see the tracks that tears have made over his journey and there is only one thing Nicolò can do. He kisses the dusty cheeks, and his eyelids, pressing their foreheads together, as if they can become one person.</p><p>"You are the song that lives in my soul, Yusuf. You give me words, beautiful words, for no reason other than to see me smile. You are the happiness on my best days and the comfort on my worst days. You are the faith that I live my life with," Nicolò says, eyes screwed close as he cries harder and harder. He falls to prayer, in a way he hasn't since he was a very young man, praying to not be different. Praying to be happy.</p><p>Happiness is found in unexpected places, but the love in Yusuf's eyes is the most expected place for Nicolò.</p><p>Nicolò eases Yusuf down to the ground, standing on shaky legs to haul the bucket from the old well. He nearly drops it twice, shuddering hard as he tries to not think of the wet darkness that he had lived in before he heard the strains of Yusuf's music.</p><p>"We will go back to Malta, you know. We will walk the beaches in the early morning before your prayers and afterwards, I will cook breakfast. You can feed me figs again and when we kiss, I will taste honey on your lips," Nicolò says, using a rag torn from his tunic to wipe the dust and tear tracks from Yusuf's face. He rinses the rag as many times as he is able until he must gather a new bucket.</p><p>With that one, he gently cleans every part of exposed skin that Yusuf has, whispering prayers and love all the while.</p><p>Nicolò's sob hitches as he bows his head over Yusuf's, clinging to him. The man in his arms breathes slowly as Nicolò takes a heaving breath, calming himself as much as he is able, using a cleaner part of his rag to dribble water into Yusuf's mouth.</p><p>He pets his hair as the sun sinks behind the horizon. Nicolò hums softly, voice cracking when he tries to sing. The first stars slide out from behind the clouds, the moon bright and kind in a way the sun had not been. It is on his hundredth prayer and millionth promise that he sees the soft flutter of lashes.</p><p>"Yusuf," Nicolò breathes, a hand caressing his skin gently, aware of the wind burn and the chapped skin. In the bright, gentle, full moon, he sees Yusuf's eyes open and focus on him, disbelief, hope, and devastation warring before tears spill over his cheeks.</p><p>"Nico?" Yusuf asks, voice broken as Nicolò sobs hard, pressing his forehead to Yusuf's, sharing breath as they share their life. Nicolò curls his hands into Yusuf's hair, kissing him hard as Yusuf crawls closer.</p><p>They sob into each other's mouths, counting heartbeats between them. Yusuf smooths his hands over Nicolò's hair and his face, touching him and Nicolò wraps his arms around him, holding on.</p><p>"Habibi," Nicolò whispers, cradling Yusuf close. Yusuf holds his wrist, thumb brushing over the skin there as he gazes up at Nicolò, "I'm here."</p><p>Yusuf presses his face into Nicolò's neck, shudders wracking his frame as they hold each other.</p><p>The moon gazes down on them, the night breeze like a comforting caress as they repeat vows to each other, promising to follow one another for this lifetime and all the others given to them.</p><p>---</p><p>It is said that Nicolò di Genova was given a gift.</p><p>Some say that this gift is the ability to understand anyone who passes through, a mind for languages the way Yusuf has a mind for numbers. He is the comfort after a heartbreak and the counsel for a confused soul.</p><p>It is a gift, to be as understanding as Nicolò di Genova - so says Yusuf.</p><p>If you were to ask Nicolò, he would tell you that the gift of his life is not in the community he finds a world away from his home. It isn't the joyous sound of his soul singing when Yusuf laughs.</p><p>The gift that he has, the truest gift, is that Yusuf gives his love freely.</p><p>It is love that leads him home, time and time again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Translations (as ever, if you see any errors, please KINDLY let me know!):<br/>Hayati: My Life<br/>Habibi: My Love</p><p>As you could tell, I am ALWAYS taking prompts over on Tumblr, at <a href="https://cactusdragon517.tumblr.com/">CactusDragon517</a>! Come chat with me!</p><p>If you don't mind, give the <a href="https://cactusdragon517.tumblr.com/post/627726619788869632/at-the-crossings-of-two-heart-lines-mayqueen517">link</a> to this a reblog!</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
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        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29304078">Down The Brilliant Dream</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/pseuds/MayQueen517">MayQueen517</a>
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